Recently released tender documents for the upcoming Personal Independence Payment (PIP) assessments reveal Atos has been using the services of online marketing agency Big Mouth Media to spy on disabled people’s social networking pages.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Big Mouth Media/LBi claim they ended their relationship with Atos in February this year and were not involved in the website closures by Atos mentioned in this piece, for more information see: How Much Did Atos Lie To Win PIP Contract?

LBi claim: “I’d just like to clarify that bigmouthmedia, which is now part of LBi, does not work with ATOS Healthcare in any way. We were initially involved in a project to help them better understand social media, but in February this year we decided to bring an end to our relationship. Furthermore, we were categorically not involved with the closure of any website, blog or online community space on behalf of ATOS Healthcare.”

UPDATE: An unofficial spokesperson for LBi/Big Mouth Media claim they are no longer involved with Atos due to a ‘difference of opinion’. Full official clarification is promised soon.

Atos claim that using Big Mouthed Media to “pro-actively monitor websites and social media” for mentions of the company has helped them identify any areas of public concern about their activities. In reality Atos have been responsible for using legal threats in an attempt to censor and stifle any online criticism of their disability denying benefit assessments.

Atos carry out the notorious Work Capability Assessment. This crude computer based test has been used to strip benefits from out of work sick or disabled claimants.

An increasing number of deaths have been linked to the endless assessment and re-assessment regime, whilst earlier in the year it was discovered that 32 people a week die after being found ‘fit for work’ by Atos. The company recently won the contract to carry out similar assessments for those claiming Disability Living Allowance, when it is reformed into Personal Independence Payments (PIP) next year. It is in the tender document for these assessments, recently published online by bungling DWP officials, where Atos claim to monitor the social networking pages of sick or disabled claimants.

Big Mouth Media do not boast of their involvement with Atos on their client list, preferring to keep that dirty little secret to themselves. But there can be little doubt that this company is making money was making money (see updates) supporting Atos and their drive to force as many sick and disabled people into poverty as possible.

There can be few things more embarrassing then for a online marketing company to become a target for protests and complaints themselves on social media websites. This is the kind of thing they are hired to prevent. Strangely Big Mouth Media, who claim to be an expert on social media, are inactive on twitter* where they have an empty account @bigmouthmedia. Luckily they are on facebook, so why not tell them what you think of their involvement with disability denying poverty pimps Atos: http://www.facebook.com/bigmouthmedia/

*Big Mouth Media recently merged with LBi, who can be found on twitter @LBiLondon

I wonder if that has anything to do with this spate of bendy coppering that’s conspicuously failed to hit the headlines over the last couple of days? Obviously, getting websites shut down is bad enough, but providing the police with details of vulnerable activists to go and harass to the point of suicidality is a whole other level of evil. Something to investigate there, I’ll bet…

“The police turned up with a warrant at the home of a disabled Quaker, in order to search the house, and confiscate computer and phone equipment [my emphasis]. This is the home of someone committed to peaceful protest and non-violent direct action. Police Force: North Yorks.” – UN-fucking-believable.

The Atos “assessor” in the recent documentary didn’t believe the mental patient who had made repeated suicide attempts was really mentally ill, because their suicide attempts had failed and they were still alive. As far as the Atos “assessor” was concerned the person still being alive was proof that they were faking their illness and were just workshy benefit scrounging scum.

The only way to prove that you are really sick to these sick maniacs, is to die.

It’s very reminiscent of this: “the alleged witch would be bound at the hands and feet – with heavy rocked attached – and thrown into a body of water. If the body floated to the surface, that was proof, along some kind of whimsical lines, that the accused was indeed a witch (at which point they’d execute her by some other means). If she sank to the bottom – and inevitably drowned – she was innocent.”

Hi Counihan family,
You know the stuff they put on TV secretly filming people? To ‘prove’ they are ‘not disabled’? They call it evidence. It might just be ‘a good day’. Like if you have ME/CFS. Also if you get up for even one track to dance at a disco. Or carry some shopping.
It might be news to them, but maybe 99% of all disabled people have absolutely zero help or support. So yes they have to do their own shopping if they are not to starve. Most are not recognised anywhere as disabled, of course they know they are. No meals on wheels, no help cooking, no nothing. And if you clean your own car. If you don’t, it falls to bits! If you don’t do bins/recycling it piles up and you can be prosecuted. All very knackering if you are old/sick/disabled but you have to do it. If you are a single person household there is nobody else to do it.

Stupid questions like can you lift a spoon. Duh! Most people can. If you can’t, odds are that you also can’t get to the assessment centre.

Fluctuating conditions don’t fit the questionnaire.
So for the last few months since July in my case I have had an ongoing severe chest infection making pre-existing difficult breathing worse, I also have recurrent infections and longstanding ME/CFS. I’m also a disability athlete. So when I do races it is generally while sick, injured, malnourished,
starving, etc. And afterwards I’m unable to do anything for days.
After the race I did last week, I had voluntary work the next day, but was so tired and sick. I was then incapable of much for 3-4 days, Also have episodes of physically not being able to move for hours (nerves etc not working properly). So I can be running one day, unable to move hours later.

Atos are NOT in the interests of disabled people. If anything they are doing their best to eradicate disabled people. Thatcher said there is no such thing as society. The government now say there is no such thing as disability.

Watch the cerebral palsy class runners. A lot fall over as/after they finish, or during the race. Then are (according to reports I’ve read) very tired for a long time. This isn’t my class so I don’t know so much about it. But I know ME/CFS is exhausting. You get to having to do things and putting more energy in to do it half as fast, and then exhausted from the ME and the extra effort, and just trying to look like you feel even halfway okay is draining too.

Get an army assault course, send all disabled people across it.
If they get to the end in a minute, they will be reclassified as ablebodied and sent to a McJob. all the rest will be shot.
(Oh sorry, I was on a train and I picked up a bunch of papers left there by somebody called Ian Duncan Smith…)

Hardly surprising that any company will spy on the social media, it’s an open forum and everybody is being watched (including this post). I suspect that this sort of website is of particular interest to the government. I would be a lot more worried about state security services than about Atos

I’d just like to clarify that bigmouthmedia, which is now part of LBi, does not work with ATOS Healthcare in any way. We were initially involved in a project to help them better understand social media, but in February this year we decided to bring an end to our relationship. Furthermore, we were categorically not involved with the closure of any website, blog or online community space on behalf of ATOS Healthcare.
Regards,
LBi.

“Never use Fakebook or Twatter” … unless you want a chap on the door. Anyone daft enough to use the spy tools is setting themselves up (even when you “delete” it it is still there)… that is what they are there for; they are a State “honeytrap”, to flush “dissenters” out of the woodwork… you may as well hand yourself in down the local nick.

Being pro-active against all this is the only way, we can sit at computers typing our feelings and that will seldom hurt them… stick and stones… reality is when the pol tax was introduced, look what happened?.. yes.. people made a difference and got it changed… protest and riots often happen for a reason and not because somebody initially wants a free flat-screen tv or the latest trianers, that merely shows such things are miles away from many without being able to take them.. no jobs, no money, no hope… illness mental and physical… it’s a vicious circle… and of course the government gets it wrong, as if they would no the psyche’ of many who see nothing in their futures… this government is guilty of breeding more like-minded people instead of creating they take away what little people can just about get by on because of their rhetoric… because of their propaganda the working class are being treated like prize chumps to do the tory dirty work for them in persecuting the mentally and physically disabled, they are f-cking human’s god damn it! and deserve the right to dignity and some respect without their own being turned against them as a result of propaganda… much being lies.

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